What makes a photograph powerful?  For one, the viewer must sense, that it was essential for the photographer to express a fundamental need, that this subject must be photographed!  The Artist must have a highly developed sense for the importance and urgency of making a photograph.  Obsession with the technical, addiction to every new gadget can impede the process to meaningful work.  Fussing with gadgets and techniques and losing ones sense of balance in this area is like a writer who believes a better word processor will create the profound novel.  The Artist must have something to say photographically.  Before the light reaches the negative or the camera sensor that photograph, in essence, has been made in the mind of the photographer.  The craft must be approached with the aim of creating images that are emotionally engaging, so that even someone unfamiliar with the medium can look at a print and never tire of it.  Vincent Van Gogh wrote to a friend...."if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real intention and  purpose."  For me, there's intention and purpose in capturing the ephemeral moment either on silver or digital capture.  I work on occasion with a large format 8x10 wooden camera that I built; I feel the large negative allows for a beautiful continuous tone and depth.  I also create digital files from the large and medium format negatives.  I print now  on Hahnemuhle Museum Etching and Photo Satin paper that display deep rich maximum blacks.  The paper also displays a mysterious illusion of space,  substance and luminosity.